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Learning to code at 30

10sion

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Hey folks

I alhumdulillah happen to have a great job (not tech related), that not only gives me a good enough salary to take care of all my needs, but also is meaningful and at the end of the day I do not feel as if my work has no purpose.

However I want to eventually move away from a regular 9-5 job, and one reason is so that I can spend more time with my daughter who is currently 1.5 years old.

When it comes to remote jobs, I would love to learn to code and be a web developer (and a part time copywriter).

With so many options out there, it does get pretty confusing at times. Would love to get advice from people here.

Eventually, I would love to learn a skill in 6-9 months and earn just $2000 per month from a remote job. Thats how low I have set the bar for myself.

Kindly share your two cents.
 
Hey folks

I alhumdulillah happen to have a great job (not tech related), that not only gives me a good enough salary to take care of all my needs, but also is meaningful and at the end of the day I do not feel as if my work has no purpose.

However I want to eventually move away from a regular 9-5 job, and one reason is so that I can spend more time with my daughter who is currently 1.5 years old.

When it comes to remote jobs, I would love to learn to code and be a web developer (and a part time copywriter).

With so many options out there, it does get pretty confusing at times. Would love to get advice from people here.

Eventually, I would love to learn a skill in 6-9 months and earn just $2000 per month from a remote job. Thats how low I have set the bar for myself.

Kindly share your two cents.

I have no advice regarding the technicalities of the career you seek, but wanted to wish you all the best in pursuing it.

Just a note regarding remote working though. You will need to adjust your mindset as you will be opening your doors at home to work. This will eat into your personal space. You will need to set limits with your family. Be sure you are prepared to do this.

I changed my 5 day week to condensed hours into a 4 day week, with one of those days working from home. I did this to be able to chip in with looking after my daughter. In my hubris, I thought I could help take care of her on my days working at home. Nope. Between the emails and teleconferencing, it's like being in the office, just in a different part of the building.

It can potentially be a miserable situation as you can end up working more hours from the comfort of your home. Have you explored flexible working options with your workplace?

Set out a disciplined routine and adhere to it when you finally make the jump.

Good luck.
 
30's still young. There's no age limit to learning and pursuing your goals. Go for it.
 
I have no advice regarding the technicalities of the career you seek, but wanted to wish you all the best in pursuing it.

Just a note regarding remote working though. You will need to adjust your mindset as you will be opening your doors at home to work. This will eat into your personal space. You will need to set limits with your family. Be sure you are prepared to do this.

I changed my 5 day week to condensed hours into a 4 day week, with one of those days working from home. I did this to be able to chip in with looking after my daughter. In my hubris, I thought I could help take care of her on my days working at home. Nope. Between the emails and teleconferencing, it's like being in the office, just in a different part of the building.

It can potentially be a miserable situation as you can end up working more hours from the comfort of your home. Have you explored flexible working options with your workplace?

Set out a disciplined routine and adhere to it when you finally make the jump.

Good luck.

I am actually the Principal of a school. So I really do not have the option of flexible working hours.

You have written all about legitimate concerns and this is what I was thinking too. Thank you for taking the time to write it as it feels great to find someone who has been there, done that too.

30's still young. There's no age limit to learning and pursuing your goals. Go for it.

Thank you.
 
I m a .Net tech lead working in hyderabad, India since 9 years.

If u want to be a web developer latest trend in the market is react, angular 6, with some REST API (using .Net core 2.2) or with NodeJS.

Also learn Azure with SQL Azure if u want to be a .Net developer.

If u want something more exciting then learn python with machine learning & AI tools so that u can be a data scientist. Machine learning expert is the latest hot cake in the market.

All the best.
 
In my opinion,

6-9 months is enough to learn a language but not enough to get to the point where you'll know the architectures.

If you are doing it purely as hobby, that's ok but when you have mouths to feed, then it takes a different turn.

There are too many web developers out there. Some are just $hitty ones especially from desi countries who does know the syntaxes but doesn't know why they are using it.

The toughest part, in my opinion is the architecture and construction of the language. Knowing variables, functions, class, object, conditionals, loops will only take you to a limit. This is the easiest part. But after that, there is a steep curve of learning different design patterns and also in and out of the language. For example, simply learning how to use arrays wont be enough. You'll also have to learn how the pointers move from one element to another which will be different in different languages. Not to mention, the web world today doesn't only revolve only around one server side script, database and the client language rather, there are layers to make it more efficient and easier to maintain.

Without this, you'll be stuck at some low paying jobs and initially you will find assignments only from small companies who will try to extract more and more with providing very little money. And this first hurdle is very hard to pass as a freelance web developer. Unless if you want to apply for agencies which will again defeat the purpose of spending time with your family as you will have deadlines.

Not to mention, even as a freelancer, you will have deadlines and you will feel the pressure.

My advice, keep doing what you are doing. You are in a much better place right now. The stress that a freelance web developer brings is more compared to what you are facing now. And it would have been ok to risk it had the reason of leaving the current job wasn't spending time with your family.
 
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With abundance of online content, you will find a way somehow to learn a new language or technology even if it’s different to what you do now. Just some hard work required.

Hardest part is to be good enough to establish yourself as an online freelance developer.

Your options are;

Enrol to a online course like Udemy in your chosen technology
Get a certification from an accredited university if possible
Always keep practising on your personal computer whatever you learn
Keep reading about latest trends in your chosen technology
Check freelancer sites and apply for small work that you are comfortable now ie. type writing

I would at least suggest first to learn HTML and css, because most would be looking for someone to design online static web content from small business to medium size businesses

You are competing against millions of people around the world. So take it easy.
Don’t leave your job now, try doing this in your free time or weekends.
Once you are confident about doing this, take the plunge. Age is not the bar. Good luck !
 
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